Pesticide poisoning has rapidly increased in Argentina as Monsanto-seed
pesticided crops ramped up.
Meanwhile in Georgia, 90+% of common crops already are doused in pesticides.
What effects are all those poisons having on our own children and adults?
Argentine farmworker Fabian Tomasi wasn’t trained to use protective
gear as he pumped pesticides into crop dusters. Now at 47, he’s a
living skeleton.
Schoolteacher Andrea Druetta lives in a town where it’s illegal to
spray agrochemicals within 550 yards of homes, and yet soy is
planted just 33 yards from her back door. Recently, her boys were
showered in chemicals while swimming in their backyard pool.
Sofia Gatica’s search for answers after losing her newborn to kidney
failure led to Argentina’s first criminal convictions for illegal
spraying last year. But 80 percent of her neighbors’ children
surveyed carry pesticides in their blood.
Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and
Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically
engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent
scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely
limit research options.
In case you wondered why all the research seems to come from other countries,
such as Argentina and France, as shown in this
documentary from Germany?
Well, now you know.
The documentary points out many products in German stores that
include GM soy.
In Argentina, it’s even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.
They interview
Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:
“The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here.
If you look closely you can see one brain.
Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin.”
“To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose.
A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field.
Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate,
for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup.”
Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe.
Seralini
says:
Who should you believe?
A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception,
or scientists who say that GM crops
cause liver and kidney damage in animals,
according to research using Monsanto’s own data.
A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to
impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is
the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant
Monsanto’s Roundup product.
A ban, if approved, would mean “we couldn’t do agriculture in
Argentina”, said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE,
Argentina’s association of fertiliser companies.
My, that’s rather apocalyptic!
And financially even worse:
Any ban on the use of glyphosate could have dire fiscal consequences:
the already cash-strapped Argentine government relies heavily on tariffs
levied on agricultural exports. It is expected to rake in some $5bn this
year, although that is about half the previous year’s level after a
longrunning conflict with farmers, a bitter drought and lower prices
have slashed production of the country’s main cash crop, soya.
Or is it?
Mr Carrasco acknowledged there were “too many economic interests at
stake” to ban glyphosate outright. But, he said, officials could start
ring-fencing the problem by enforcing effective controls where crops
are sprayed.
That would be a start.
Working on other methods of weed and insect control would be even better.
The Financial Times does mention that there are Argentine studies that support
Dr. Carrasco’s as-yet-unpublished study:
Research by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners
has indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people
living near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo
Páramo, in the northern farming province of Santa Fé reported 12
malformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate.
Yet the Financial Times did not mention the numerous scientific
studies in other countries that show similar results.
For example, French scientists, Drs. Seralini and Benacour, have
published a
number of scientific papers about the harmful effects
of Roundup and its ingredients on human embryonic and
placental cells. A Swedish scientific team lead by Dr. Akerman published
an epidemiological study disclosing that exposure
to glyphosate is a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin
lymphoma. Dr. Busbee – an American scientist – demonstrated
alterations in estrogen-regulated genes after exposure to dilute
concentrations of glyphosate.
We have evaluated the toxicity of four glyphosate (G)-based herbicides in
Roundup (R) formulations, from 105 times dilutions, on three different
human cell types. This dilution level is far below agricultural
recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or
feed. The formulations have been compared to G alone and with its main
metabolite AMPA or with one known adjuvant of R formulations, POEA. HUVEC
primary neonate umbilical cord vein cells have been tested with 293
embryonic kidney and JEG3 placental cell lines. All R formulations cause
total cell death within 24 h, through an inhibition of the mitochondrial
succinate dehydrogenase activity, and necrosis, by release of cytosolic
adenylate kinase measuring membrane damage.
And it gets even better:
The deleterious effects are not proportional to G concentrations but rather depend on the nature of the adjuvants. AMPA and POEA separately and synergistically damage cell membranes like R but at different concentrations. Their mixtures are generally even more harmful with G. In conclusion, the R adjuvants like POEA change human cell permeability and amplify toxicity induced already by G, through apoptosis and necrosis. The real threshold of G toxicity must take into account the presence of adjuvants but also G metabolism and time-amplified effects or bioaccumulation.
Glysophate makes other chemicals even more toxic, and remember Glysophate
doesn’t break down rapidly and tends to accumulate in organisms.
Organisms such as you and your children.
A study released by an Argentine scientist earlier this year reports that
glyphosate, patented by Monsanto under the name “Round Up,” causes birth
defects when applied in doses much lower than what is commonly used in
soy fields.
The study was directed by a leading embryologist, Dr. Andres Carrasco,
a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. In his
office in the nation’s top medical school, Dr. Carrasco shows me the
results of the study, pulling out photos of birth defects in the embryos
of frog amphibians exposed to glyphosate. The frog embryos grown in petri
dishes in the photos looked like something from a futuristic horror
film, creatures with visible defects—one eye the size of the head,
spinal cord deformations, and kidneys that are not fully developed.
“We injected the amphibian embryo cells with glyphosate diluted to
a concentration 1,500 times [less] than what is used commercially
and we allowed the amphibians to grow in strictly controlled
conditions.” Dr. Carrasco reports that the embryos survived from a
fertilized egg state until the tadpole stage, but developed obvious
defects which would compromise their ability to live in their normal
habitats.
Argentine farmworker Fabian Tomasi wasn’t trained to use protective gear as he pumped pesticides into crop dusters. Now at 47, he’s a living skeleton.
